The game-changers that were revealed behind the scenes at E3 2018

Last week the E3 expo took over the city of Los Angeles, and the thoughts and emotions of millions all over the world.

Pre-show conferences gave us our first decent looks at Death Stranding, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, The Last of Us Part 2, Fallout 76, Resident Evil 2 and many more.

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Completely new games were announced, like Halo Infinite, Gears 5, Super Mario Party and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

And of course 69,200 industry professionals, content creators, journalist types and paying members of the public lined for hours to get their hands on hundreds of unreleased games including Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Spider-Man and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

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But what happens on stage at the conferences and on the show floor only tells part of the story. Behind closed doors members of the press meet with the developers and publishers that produce the games, for a much closer look at the future of the medium.

Fears for the future

The Witcher III is one of the most critically lauded games of the past decade, and the team behind it — Polish RPG powerhouse CD Projekt Red — is finally ready to start showing off what's next. Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world first-person adventure big on shooting and player customisation, based on a well-respected pen-and-paper roleplaying game.

As V, players will delve into the dark underbelly of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077, shown for the first time at E3.

As V, players will delve into the dark underbelly of Night City. It's a grimy, beautiful dystopia of cars, crime and computers, and just about every journalist who went behind closed doors to see the game at E3 came out 50 minutes later feeling excited. Well, except the Australians. We were all a little worried.

Games that incentivise in-game drug use can not be classified in Australia, and are effectively banned from sale. This was fresh in our minds — because it happened only recently to another interactive dystopia, We Happy Few — as we watched V huffing god knows what from an inhaler to take the edge off (or, alternatively, to give her an edge). The source material certainly isn't shy on detailing the effects of all the substances available in this world either, so assuming this is the authentic adaption it appears to be, Aussie fans could be in a spot of bother.

Mud, blood and steel

And speaking of authenticity, Sony-owned Sucker Punch has pivoted from making superhero games like Infamous to producing an astonishingly grounded period piece, set in 1274 Japan. In the mournful Ghost of Tsushima, players will follow Jin Sakai, one of the few samurai not to be slaughtered immediately when Mongols invade his island.

The slice of Ghost of Tsushima shown in the demo is all about the horrible things good people can do.

Game director Nate Fox says the game takes inspiration from Akira Kurosawa and the golden age of samurai films, with a focus on presenting "the sublime beauty of nature" and a "powerfully still" hero. And all of this came through wonderfully in the slice of gameplay we were shown. You could see the streaky grey of distant rainfall in the sky as Jin rode through flowing meadows and swirling red leaves, to eventually face off against a group of invaders, the first of which he dispatched in a single strike.

But the game is also concerned with the real-life customs and culture of the Japanese people of the time, and especially the samurai. In particular it focuses on how Jin must learn to adapt his ancient ways in order to overcome threats he never could have dreamed of before the invasion; the guns, bombs and powerful fighting techniques of a military force that, at the time, was unmatched anywhere in the world.

A win for accessibility

Xbox might not have brought many blockbuster games to the show, but it nevertheless had some interesting developments to discuss in the meeting rooms of Microsoft Theater. The adaptive controller is one of them. Looking like an artsy white plastic wedge with two huge circles on top, the controller is actually a genius design that opens up the entire world of gaming to anybody, regardless of whether they have full use of both their hands (or even if they don't use either).

The Xbox adaptive controller is a game-changer.Credit:AP

The circles are programmable buttons that can be activated by lightly pressing, or by just rolling an arm or foot over them, but the important part of the setup is around the back. There's a 3.5mm port for every button on the standard controller, and gamers can plug in any standard gear they might already use, such as buttons, foot pedals or even sip-and-puff switches. The sides of the controller feature USB ports, in case you want to plug in a paddle or flightstick in place of thumbsticks.

The result is that no matter how much or what kind of mobility and dexterity a player has, they can create a rig that works for every game. Smart software for Xbox One and PC also lets players store profiles for individual games so they can change how everything works without having to unplug or move their input devices.